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Anna Comneno, the Alexiad and the First Crusade 1 by Her Own Occount

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Anna Comneno, the Alexiad and the First Crusade 1 by Her Own Occount READING MEDIEVAL STUDIES Anna Comneno, the Alexiad and the First Crusade 1 By her own occount Anna Com >"Ie no began to write the Alexiad shortly after the death of her husband, Nicephoros Bryennios, in 1137. He hod begun a life of Alexius, known to us as the Hyle, but had taken it no further than the end of the reign of Nicephoros Botaniates in March 1081. This inspired Anna to continue the unfinished life of her father. 2 Some 30 years after the death of Alexius, she tells us that she was still preparing the work. 3 Those parts of Books X ::md XI which deal with the First Crusade were therefore written at least 40 years ofter the events they describe . We know that Anna W';IS born on 1 December 1083 4 so she was only thirteen when the crusade came to Constantinople in 1096-97. In view of these facts it is difficult to regard her as an eye-witness even for those events which took place in and around Constantinople during the First Crusade. 5 Anna is at pains to stress her involvement in public affairs even at a very tender age, 6 but it seems likely that her childhood recollections odd no more than a certain vividness to accounts of events which, essentially, she derived from other c sources. Her poor dating is also probably evidence of her distance from a events. Anna makes a point of emphasising the limitations of her sources. T On the death of her father she had intrigued unsuccessfully to place her p. husband, Nicephoros Bryennios, on the throne in place of her brother John: m this is why John II Com" enus (1118-1143) imprisoned Anna in the Theotokos w Kecharitomenae in western Asia Minor. 7 Because of this she declares: a For thirty years now ... 'I have not seen, I have not spoken to a friend of m, father', and goes on to tell us that she obtained inform:1tion only from humSle men, veterans who had entered the monastic life. She says that she used these accounts to supplement and correct her own m .~mories and writings, and stories she had heard in the family. 8 On the other hand Anna seems to have been freer to collect evidence after the death of her brother, the Emperor John, in 1143 for she also tells us: 'there are m~n still olive today who knew ml father and tell me of his deeds. They have, in fact, rmde a not incon­ siderable contribution to the history ... '. 9 Further, both Buckler and Chalandon agree that Anna must have been able to use the Imperial Archives because she reproduces docum-~nts, sam.:! of which fall within the area we are concerned with here. 10 The actual text of the letters of Hugh IV\ognus as given by Anna seem~ rather unlikely, but there can be little doubt that letters were exchanged. liOn the other hand the exchange of letters with Bohemond in 1103 and the instruction to St. Gilles in 1099 have the ring of truth, while the text of the Treaty of Devol is undoubtedly accurate. 12 Anna, therefore, w , probably had access to the imperial archivesi by her own account she. was w able to draw upon the testimony of men of varying degreesi she was able to B use her own earlier (but unspecified) writings; and above all she W-:JS able to fi drow upon the recollections of the Imperial family, especially her husband . th All this gives Anno's work great authority for the period of the First Crusade, ;t 20 READING MEDIEVAL STUDIES although she cannot be regarded as an eye-witness to the events. However, despite her protestations to the contrary, 13 she did favour her father. Her entire account of the crusade is coloured by her anxiety to defend her father from the charge of oath-breaking, a charge which had the gravest political imolicotions for Alexius and for the Byzantine Empire, and which was still o iiving issue ot the time she wrote. Alexius and the latin princes who led the crusade rmde on agreement upon oath in the spring of 1097, whose detailed terms ore not known to us. By virtue of that agreement Alexius claimed that the lotins should hove restored Antioch to him when it fell in June 1098, but Bohemond, who controlled the city, ~s ahle to claim that Alexius had broken the agreement, thereby destroying his obligation to the emperor. Some forty years later, when Anna was writing, John II Comnenus was still trying to re­ cover Antioch, and his son, Manuel, was to spend rTlIJch time on the same objective. It is significant of Annals general attitude to the latins that the crusade is introduced as one amongst the m'Jny troubles which beset the empire at this tima. 14 She implies that Alexius was taken totclly by surprise. There is no hint that her father might have ':IS ked for aid at the Council of Piacenza as he almost certainly did, 15 while the Council of Clermont is never mentioned. She can hardly be blamed for ignorance of Clermont for she wrote at least forty years after it met, and by that time Albert of Aix, himself a westerner, seems to have been uncertain of its importance. 16 Her silence on Piacenza is more suspect, for she had access to the Imperial archives, and this may well represent a discreet suppression . There is some evidence in the Alexiad that Alexius was forewarned of the coming of the crusaders. By Annals ~ount Alexius implemented thoufJhtful policies to control the barbarians crossing his empire,1? while he had worked out the policy of making the latin leaders become his vassals in plenty of timoe for the arrival of HUQh tv\aanus, who, it may be added, had written to him twice in advance of his coming. 18 Writers have correctly observed the tone of civilised contempt for mere barbari­ ans with which AIir"lO first speaks of the crusaders, but amongst the generalised abuse which she showers upon them .. here, at the very beginning of the story, note one specific charge, thot of oath-breaking. This deplorable tendency to perjury is carefully presented as arising from the very character of the latins. It is a theme which she cultivates assiduously in the early stages of the Alexiad, and which totolly dominates the work in so for as it is concerned with the crusade. As part of her campaign to blame the latins for all that went wrong, it was vital to blacken the reputation of Bohemond, the orch-villain who later seized Antioch from Alexius contrary to his ooth. long before Bohemond actually appears in the story, he is carefully introduced and vii Ii­ fied. The simplicity of the poor on the 'People's Crusade' is contrasted with the rm levalence of Bohemond whose true purpose was to seize Constantinople itself; this charge is repeated twice. 19 His coming is foreshadowed, 20 21 READING MEDIEVAL STUDIES while it is alleged that he had bound the other leaders together in a conspiracy be against the Empire. 21 Even minor leaders prevaricate about taking an oath or to A!exius because they oW:Jit the arrival of Bohe nr:md . 22 All this is done 10 before Bohem ·~nd himself com~s into the story with the arrival of his orm; ot on A"lona. Of course it does, in port, reflect contemporary Byzantine fear of or Bohemond who, only ten years before, had been pJrty to on effort to destroy so the Byzantine empire, but its real purpose is to prepare the way for his role in ho the drama of oath-breaking which dominates Anna's account. One vitol purpose of all this anticipation was to explain and discredit Bohemond's initial friendliness tOW':lrds the em?ire. On this the western sources are explicit. The Anonymous tells us thot almost as soon as he hod landed Bohemond ordered his troops to behave well, warning 'them 1)11 to be courteous and refroin from bo plundering that land, which belonged to the Christians', and he goes on to ho mention other occasions when Bohemond restrained his army and treated the loca l so people well. 23 Raymond of Aguilers, no friend of the Normons of South th Italy, makes it quite clear that Bohemond sided with Alexius in his quarrel bo with the Count of Toulouse at Constantinople. 24 A,1na W:JS forced to admit oc that Bohemond first pursued a policy of friendship, but she W':JS able to explain ob it away as m.~re pretence arising from his weak position; an explanation for sig which she has very adeqU'Jtely prepared us: 'Knowing that he himself was not of noble descent, with no great military following because of his lack of re­ sources, he wished to win the emperor's goodwill, but at the some tim~ to 0"1 conce:J1 his own hostile intentions against him' . 25 The judgement on the nu size of Boheml)nd's following probably reflects knowledge of his difficult position in South Italy :Jt this tim.~. What it is im;:>ortant to reco;nise at this point is that Bohemond has been carefully introduced to us as a mon not to be trusted, and that this characteristic is fixed upon all the latin leaders, partly as spring ing from character and part Iy from ;JSsac iation with the arch-v ilia in and great oathbreaker.
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